According to Osho, in the West’s last two centuries the brightest sparks were Theosophy’s Helena Blavatsky and, above all, J. Krishnamurti—yet institutions expelled the very genius who could give momentum. Within Christianity the chain persists but lacks a towering catalyst. He notes earlier Western seeds like Meister Eckhart and Jacob Boehme were profound yet failed to become living, teachable chains.
Osho says a few Western figures lit big spiritual sparks, but rigid groups pushed them out, so the fire didn’t spread.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
In these last hundred or two hundred years, is there any name in the West?
Yes, yes—there is! When someone like Eckhart appeared in Germany, he was a man of tremendous worth, but not a teacher. A chain catches momentum only when a thousand conditions come together; otherwise it doesn’t. Eckhart is a man of great worth—of the worth of Jesus—but the chain could not take hold because he was not a teacher. He says things that become unintelligible; he cannot make them understood. And the things are unintelligible. Unless one has a great art of explanation, they cannot be explained at all. They are downright contradictory; only with great understanding can their contradictions be dissolved and brought closer to comprehension. Boehme appeared in Germany—he too could have become a chain, but he didn’t. The Catholic chain, in a certain sense, is alive and moving slowly; but there is no very gifted person to give it momentum. All chains slowly die. For instance, in Japan…
Beloved Osho, when someone like nietzsche or gertrude stein dies -- a genius who would probably have become enlightened if they had met a master -- what sort of consciousness do they carry into the next life, and what was it that in their previous lives allowed them to experience such a huge potential, such a great flowering, and such a great knack? Was it the idea of wanting to go their own way without a master?
It happened... I was going to Manali, the mountainous part, and it had rained, and the driver of my limousine was a Sikh. He started becoming afraid. The road was very small, the limousine was very big. The road was slippery; there were water pools collected on the road. At a certain point it looked very dangerous. A great river was flowing by, thousands of feet down -- and just a small road. He stopped the car, went out, and sat there. And he said, "I cannot move anymore, it is simply going into death." I said, "Don't be worried, you just sit; I will drive." He said, "That is even more dangerous! I cannot give you the key." I said, "This is very strange, because we have been traveling the whole night, twelve hours; now we are in the middle." I tried to explain to him, "Even going back,…
Osho, what are the reasons that very few persons in the world are interested in transforming their inner heat into spiritual light? Do you feel that the present generation is capable of creating enlightened ones like krishna, lao tzu and christ?
That also did not do because you cannot force yourself to be a Buddha, you cannot imitate. But Devadatta is forgotten and Buddha remains. The whole age is forgotten; only Buddha remains. Everything has disappeared; only Buddha remains. And then we compare Buddha with our own age. Because of that, this problem arises over whether a Buddha or a Jesus can be born today. It looks impossible. How is it possible in "this age of darkness, corruption, immorality"? How is this possible! Another factor also enters: whenever a person is dead for twenty centuries, we forget how we behaved with him when he was alive. Jesus was crucified not because he was a great Teacher or a great Enlightened One, but only because he was "immoral, undisciplined -- against the code and against the tradition". This behaviour was not that of a respectable man. And when he was killed, it…
Beloved master, during the last years the indian shamans have gone more and more into public work. Can you say something about this work?
There is nothing in Christianity which is comparable to the Upanishads or to the teachings of Gautam Buddha. Christianity is a barren religion. It has not created anything like Zen or Sufism or Hassidism, for the simple reason that it has never allowed any rebellious spirit. It has been cutting the rebellious spirit from the roots. Religion reaches to its heights only through the rebellious people, not through the mundane, the ordinary; not through the obedient; not through those who are satisfied just to believe that they will be saved, but only by those who make an effort to save themselves. Christianity has not allowed them. It is the most out-of-date religion so there is great fear. It has nothing to offer, and the more it resists the mystic teachings coming to the West, the more it will be in trouble because the youth, the young people, are no longer…
If india is such an unspiritual country, why are so many enlightened beings born here?
Try to understand me: when I say a man is spiritual I mean he is as easily flowing on the outside as he flows inside. He is whole. Neither has the East been spiritual nor has the West been spiritual. The West has been materialist and the East has been spiritualist -- but not spiritual. The West believes in the philosophy of the outside, the East believes in the philosophy of the inside. The spiritual person is one who has come to that ultimate synthesis between the outer and the inner, between matter and consciousness, between body and soul. In the real spiritual person East and West meet and disappear. The really spiritual person is neither of the East nor of the West; he is global. Where he exists is not the point. His approach is global because his approach is total. He's whole, that's why I call him holy.…